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Each month our team of expert editors addresses the changing role of IT by helping savvy
technology professionals navigate both the technical and cultural challenges wrought by
vendor-hype, user-demands, and technology requirements.

VMware vs. Hyper-V licensing and pricing exposé

Like the Red Sox vs. Yankees and Hatfields vs. McCoys, VMware vSphere vs. Microsoft Hyper-V is a
natural rivalry, with both vendors manipulating their licensing and pricing to gain the upper hand
and more market share.

Despite publicly available licensing and pricing data for vSphere
and Hyper-V,
knowing which hypervisor is a better value for your data center is not always clear cut. List
prices tell only part of the story, because both vendors negotiate price discounts with customers
to edge out the competition. For those interested in switching, there are often unanticipated and
underlying operational costs associated with replacing a hypervisor. And, with organization and IT
departments shifting their gaze to the cloud, VMware vs. Hyper-V comparisons should now include
private-cloud management, according to experts.

Whether your IT department is exploring new hypervisor options or your CIO simply want to know
if organization is getting the most bang for its buck, we’ve got you covered. The following VMware
vSphere vs. Microsoft Hyper-V pricing and licensing resources will help bring these issues into
focus.

Table of contents:

VMware vSphere vs. Microsoft Hyper-V: Which is cheaper?

The long-running narrative is that Hyper-V is cheaper than vSphere, but VMware offers more
advanced virtualization features. But do those statements hold up under scrutiny? Well, it depends.
Check out this VMware vs. Hyper-V licensing
and pricing breakdown to see how the costs and virtualization features change as a data center
scales up.

The published vSphere and Hyper-V list prices don’t often translate into real-world costs for
organizations. Both vendors negotiate enterprise agreements and offer package deals to gain virtualization
market share. For example, VMware is known to throw in View and management products to sweeten
the deal. And Microsoft will dramatically slash the price for Hyper-V to gain a foothold in a data
center.

VMware vs. Microsoft: Cloud management is the new battlefield

The private-cloud model makes hypervisor price and features comparisons nearly irrelevant.
Private clouds require such a broad-based buy-in to a vendor's strategy that experts say this
emerging market is the true VMware
vs. Microsoft battlefield. And for an even more accurate view of this competition, look at the
big picture, which includes how these offerings integrate with public clouds.

Are Hyper-V savings worth the cost of a VMware rip and replace?

Even a drastic reduction in licensing costs won’t entice some IT shops to switch hypervisors. Removing
the VMware technology at the heart of many data centers would require new training, monitoring
tools, backup strategy, etc. After factoring in these changes, many IT pros don’t see the value in
switching.